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SARAH N.CLEGHORN 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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COraRIGUT DEPOSm 



PORTRAITS AND 
PROTESTS 



BY 



SARAH N. CLEGHORN 



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1 



NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
1917 



V 



Copyright, 1917, 

BY 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
Published August 1917 



SEP-ri9|7 



THI QUINN « SOOEN CO. PRE88 

■ANWAr, N. J. 



©CI.A473303 



To 

Jessie Olivia Hawley, 
with love long endeared 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PORTRAITS 

Emilia 3 

Dorothea 6 

Margarita Singing Ballads 8 

Old Portraits Revisited 9 

Days of David's Childhood ll 

Saint R. L. S 13 

William James 14 

Jane Addams 16 

John Masefield 17 

In Bemerton Church l8 

Villa Borghese 19 

Vermont 20 

OF COUNTRY PLACES AND THE SIMPLE HEART 

The Oldenburys of Sunderland 25 

The Sigourney Circle 26 

Mr. Willoway 27 

By Abana and Pharpar 28 

The Parson's Daughters 29 

Noctes Ambrosianae . . . . . . .31 

Morrice Water 33 

Sliding River 35 

A Puritan Lady's Garden 36 

In a Far Township 38 

A Saint's Hours 40 

The Sisterly Child 42 

Baremountain Travelers 43 

The Brides of May and of September ... 44 
vii 



viii Contents 

PAGE 

OF TIME AND IMMORTALITY 

But this Is Also Everlasting Life! .... 47 

Three Poems on Immortality 48 

The Bible 50 

Judge Me, O Lord 51 

Death the Adventure 52 

Be Comforted, My Little Muse .... 54 

Come, Captain Age! 56 

Hesperides 57 

Contented at Forty 59 

There Was a Moon, There Was a Star . . 61 

PROTESTS 

The Poltroon 65 

Peace Hath her Belgiums 66 

One Hundred Thousand More! .... 67 

Last Sunday 68 

The Jail 70 

The Incentive 71 

Salem Hills to Ellis Island 72 

Richard Ford and Hermann Suhr . . . .74 

The Golf Links Lie So Near the Mill ... 75 

Poison 76 

Vivisection 78 

The Survival of the Fittest . . . . .79 
Priests and Levites . . . ,. ,. . .80 

Comrade Jesus ....... > . 81 



PORTRAITS 



EMILIA 

Half-way up the Hemlock Valley Turnpike, 
In the bend of Silver Water's arm, 

Where the deer come trooping down at even, 
Drink the cowslip pool, and fear no harm. 

Dwells Emilia, 
Flower of the fields of Camlet Farm. 

Sitting, sewing at the western window, 
As the too brief mountain sunshine flies, 

Hast thou seen a slender-shouldered figure, 
With a chestnut braid, Minerva-wise, 

Round her temples. 
Shadowing her gray enchanted eyes? 

When the freshets flood the Silver Water ; 

When the swallow, flying northward, braves 
Sleeting rains, that sweep the birchen foothills, 
Where the windflowers' pale plantation waves ;- 

Fairy gardens, 
Springing from the dead leaves in their graves ;- 
3 



4 Emilia 

Falls forgotten, then, Emilia's needle ; 

Ancient ballads, fleeting through her brain, 
Sing the cuckoo and the Enghsh primrose, 

Outdoors calling, with a quaint refrain; 
And a rainbow 

Seems to brighten through the gusty rain. 



Forth she goes, in some old dress and faded. 
Fearless of the showery shifting wind; 

Kilted are her skirts to clear the mosses. 
And her bright braids in a kerchief pinned; 

(Younger sister 
Of the damsel-errant Rosalind). 



While she helps to serve the harvest supper 
In the lantern-lighted village hall, 

Moonlight rises on the burning woodland, 
Echoes dwindle from the distant Fall. 

Hark, Emilia! 
— In her ear the airy voices call. 



(Hidden papers in the dusky garret, 
Where her few and secret poerns lie, — 

Thither flies her heart to join her treasure, 
While she serves, with absent-musing eye. 

Mighty tankards 
Foaming cider in the glasses high.)^ 



Emilia !^ 

" Would she mingle with her young companions ! " 
Vainly do her aunts and uncles say. 

Ever, from the village sports and dances 
Early missed, Emilia slips away. 

Whither vanished ? 
With what unimagined mates to play? 

Did they seek her, wandering by the water. 

They should find her comrades shy and strange! 

Queens and princesses and saints and fairies, 
Dimly moving in a cloud of change ; 

Desdemona : 
Mariana of the Moated Grange. 

Up this valley, to the Fair and Market, 

When young farmers from the southward ride, 

Oft they linger at a sound of chanting 
In the meadows by the Turnpike-side ; 

Long they listen, 
Deep in fancies of a fairy bride. 



DOROTHEA 

Young is she, and slight to view 
In her home-made cambric dresses: 

Are her sweet eyes gray or blue? 
Shade of twilight are her tresses. 

Fairy-fine at first she seems ; 
But a longer look confesses 

She's more wholesome stuff than dreams! 

(Yet I mind an April moon 
Shining down an orchard alley: 

From one book, companions boon, 
There we read " Love in the Valley 

And I saw bright phantoms race. 
Thousand phantoms fleet and rally 

All across her lighted face.) 

Once, within that ancient ground 
Where her fathers all lie sleeping, 

She, beside a recent mound, 

Still and tender, but not weeping, 

Stood : that picture on my heart 
Fair am I forever keeping : 

With that look I would not part. 
6 



Dorothea 

O but in her maiden days 

How she led the children trooping 
Through the old familiar plays! 

Up her sash and flounces looping, 
If the tiniest lost his cue, 

To his side she ran, and stooping. 
Caught his hand and danced him through. 

Met you her in Hemlock Wood 
In the white midwinter weather. 

When the pine's a tufted hood, 
And the fern's a crystal feather? 

Heard you then her yodel sweet 
And a far reply, together 

Float in echo where they meet? 

Ariel voice, from range to range 
Lightly tossed and sweetly flying! 

All her notes to murmurs change 
When the winter light is dying : 

All in magic murmurs she 

Laps and lulls the wee one lying, 

Pearl of twilight, on her knee. 



MARGARITA SINGING BALLADS 

Dark her eyes of tranquil wonder; 

Dark her smoothly banded hair; 
Broad and calm her brow and bosom 

Rising white in shadow where 
Tall she stands by the valley window 

Singing soft to the evening air. 

Hush ! 'tis the tune of sweet Ben Lomond, 
Poignant sweet and timbrel clear. 

Now when falls her wistful cadence, 
O that forest and field could hear! 

— Thrilling rise and tender cadence, 
Low and long in the dreaming ear. 

Pause not yet: the sands are fleeting: 
Fast, too fast, the moments run. 

Lo, the strains of Allan Water; 
(Amber tears in April sun). 

She breathes ; and sings The Bailiff's Daughter, 
The wayside lover of Islington. 

Yield the charm, melodious hour ! 

Distant valley chimes, forbear! 
Hark the rainbow shower of grace-notes, 

Fall of sounds how light, how fair ! 
Is it a voice of earth or elf-land 

Singing The Lass with the Delicate Air? 



OLD PORTRAITS REVISITED 

This lady's pearly shoulders dawn 

Above a liquid India lawn 

Such as Sir Joshua loved to paint. 

Encased in beaded mittens quaint 

Her hands lie folded on her knee ; 

Her head, a little wearily, 

Leans back against her carven chair. 

As overweighted with its hair; 

She bends her eyes of clouded gray 

Beyond the inlet, down the bay, 

A hundred thousand miles away. 

Such was my great-aunt Madeline : 
'Twas thus she looked at seventeen. 

Elder and more robust than she. 
This portrait's named Penelope. 
And fitly named, her carriage high 
And amply sweeping skirts reply. 
Although her shining braids are bare, 
A shadowy cap seems resting there ; 
And in her hands, though clasped at ease, 
I can discern the shadowy keys. 
Her portrait thus foretells her fate ; — 
9 



10 Old Portraits Revisited 

One of those learned ladies great 

Who ruled and blessed some broad estate. 

Can this the " little sister " be, 

So oft described, so tenderly. 

With boyish locks all backward drawn 

And beech-brown eyes shot through with fawn ? 

Ah, painter! with what art hast thou 

Portrayed the bronzed November bough, 

The very wind that billows full 

Her winter dress of crimson wool! 

Alas, the treacherous rapids fleet, 

The vine that tangled round her feet, — 

Alas, the glassy pool below ! 

And was it sixty years ago. 

Or late by twilight yesterday, 

The searching farmers climbed that way. 

Where, through the shallows amber-brown. 

One like Ophelia floated down? 



DAYS OF DAVID'S CHILDHOOD 



I WENT to see you, thinking, as I traveled, 
" He'll be out picking daisies, they're so thick. 

I never saw the fields so white so early." 
When I went in, they said, " Davie is sick." 

In Mother and Father's big bed you were lying. 

You didn't move, you didn't smile at me. 
I made my handkerchief into a rabbit; 

You didn't even turn your head to see. 

I made a mouse and hopped it up your pillow. 

I made it squeak. You didn't turn your head. 
Your Mother said, " It's no use trying, Ellen." 

" His temperature . . . last night . . ." your 
Father said . . . 

II 

There was a sound of crying and of crashing: 
And little Margaret, through the stovepipe hole, 

Called : " Mardie ! Fardie ! Davie's in a Temper ! 
He's smashed his plate, and Mother Goosie bowl." 



12 Days of David's Childhood 

III 

When I am very old I shall remember 
' As well as I do now, the August day 
We had the picnic in the Farlone meadow, 
And climbed the stacks and hid among the hay. 

There were some shallow places in Green River 
We waded back and forth; and once we thought 

We heard faint thunder rolling in the distance ; 
But spread the cakes and berries we had brought 

Under the wine-glass elm. I told a story 

Of Irish fairies, in the early gloam. 
And you ran, rolling, tumbling, in the long grass, 

In fits of bursting glee, the whole way home. 



IV 

I sliced a loaf of bread once in the pantry, 
And while I went to answer some one's call, 

Davie, to help, cut all in tiny pieces. 

When I came back, I said, " You've spoiled it all." 

He dropped the knife and stepped back from the 
table. 

Looking abashed. And though no eyes were wet, 
And though I think he did not long remember, 

I do not find I very soon forget. 



SAINT R. L. S. 

Sultry and brazen was the August day 
When Sister Stanislaus went down to see 
The little boy with the tuberculous knee. 

And as she thought to find him, so he lay: 
Still staring, through the dizzy waves of heat, 
At the tall tenement across the street. 

But did he see that dreary picture? Nay: 
In his mind's eye a sunlit harbor showed, 
Where a tall pirate ship at anchor rode. 

Yes, he was full ten thousand miles away! 
— The Sister, when she turned his pillow over, 
Kissed " Treasure Island " on its well-worn cover. 



13 



WILLIAM JAMES 



Friendly his eye and heart to common truth ; 
He plucked the wayside flower of wisdom, sprung 
Beside the weed and briar; even among 

Prophets discredited and creeds uncouth, 

(Whereat his fellow sages scoffed, forsooth) ; 
He spake his message in the people's tongue: 
" Not harsh and crabbed," but most fair and 
young, 

He showed Philosophy to Harvard youth. 



In him a faith of unextinguished fire, 

Though never shielded from the winds of thought, 
Than many a churchman's guarded flame burned 
higher : 
Through will, through reason and the heart he 
sought 
That Power not ourselves, he could not name, 
Yet wherein to believe he thought no shame. 



«4 



fVilliam James 15 

II 

But not upon that Power he bade us rest, 
Expecting, without blood or service given, 
An idle troop It would transport to heaven, 

With folded hands still waiting to be blest: 

Rather he struck the flint within the breast, 
And roused the soldier-heart, all spent and riven, 
To lead the forlorn hope, thrice backward driven, 

To the Dark Tower again, to storm its crest; 

Taking for text that King of France, who said 
(Because the field of Arques was fought and won 
Ere tardy Crillon bound his armor on) 

" Alas, brave Crillon, better thou wert dead ! " 
He bade us never let our comrades say, 
" We fought and won without you yesterday." 



JANE ADDAMS 

Physician to the city and the state, 
For their infection-seeking cause and cure; 

Of cheated maidenhood the advocate, 

Of childhood robbed, and old age premature ; 

Judge of the waste and wreckage of her time ; 

Captain in Freedom's dim bewildered war; 
Evangelist of the slow-rising prime 

The long-exploited many weary for; — 

Americans! we are not all untrue 

To the high faith our forefathers professed, 
While our young civic soldiers, not a few, 

Follow this Maid of Orleans of the West. 



I6 



. , JOHN MASEFIELD 

Democracy's best pen, with passion vowed 

" To maimed and halt and blind, in rain and cold," 
Three mighty epics of the poor hath told: — 

The Dauber, freezing to the sleeted shroud: 

The Widow kneeling in the gallows crowd : 
And that great idyl of the windy wold, 
The drunkard walking where the dawn unrolled, 

And with changed eyes beholding one who plowed. 

Again, Immortal, yoke that share divine. 
And fix our eyes "forever on that sign" ; — 
Plow deep our souls, that can with mirth endure 
Ease to ourselves and burdens to the poor; — 
Convert us wastrels; O undying pen, 
Harrow our hearts, that we may " flower to men." 



11 



IN BEMERTON CHURCH 

This aisle George Herbert walked, and in this choir 
With plaintive music charmed his pen, 

And quaintly wrought his lines of burnished fire. 
Excusing unto God the ways of men. 

Yea, up this grassy path, and through this porch, 

With tenuous form and aspect sad, 
He led the wanton English Muse to church: 

The lovely pagan Muse, " well drest and clad." 



I8 



VILLA BORGHESE 

Where the north wall of Tullius stood, 
A fountain pours its slender flood 
Into a pool of olive shallows, 
Before a black and silver wood. 

***** 

Enameled is this shining sod 
Where sweet the winter violets nod, 
Bright as the steps of Beatrice, 
Or footpath of a rustic god. 

4: * * )(: ^ 

These walls, in ivy tangled deep, 
A grove of oak and ilex keep. 
Above it, in a cypress shadow, 
A marble lion lies asleep. 

***** 

How thick the ages brood below 
These solemn pines in sculptured row 
About a marbled mossed arena, 
Where mimic battles long ago 

Were fought by Roman boys at play ! 
Alas how still, how dreamless, they 
Who wrestled for the glorious laurel 
Now sleep beside the Appian way! 
19 



VERMONT 

I 
WroE and shallow, in the cowslip marshes, 

Floods the freshet of the April snow; 
Late drifts linger in the hemlock gorges, 

Through the brakes and mosses trickling slow, 

Where the mayflower, 
Where the painted trillium, leaf and blow. 

II 

Foliaged deep, the cool midsummer maples 
Shade the porches of the long white street. 

Trailing wide, Olympian elms lean over 
Tiny churches where the cross-roads meet: 

Fields of fireflies 
Wheel all night like stars above the wheat. 

Ill 

Blaze the mountains in the windless autumn, 
Frost-clear, blue-nooned, apple-ripening days; 

Faintly fragrant, in the farther valleys, 
Smoke of many bonfires swell the haze : 

Fair-bound cattle 
Plod with lowing up the meadowy ways. 

20 



Vermont 21 

IV 

Roaring snows, down-sweeping from the uplands, 
Bury the still valleys, drift them deep. 

Low along the mountains, lake-blue shadows, 
Sea-blue shadows, in the snow-drifts sleep. 

High above them 
Blinding crystal is the sunlit steep. 



OF COUNTRY PLACES AND 
THE SIMPLE HEART 



THE OLDENBURYS OF SUNDERLAND 

Turn again into the wooded Hollow 

By the fabled Tory-hunter's well, 
Where the strange and bookish Oldenburys 

On their wasted patrimony dwell. 

Rowland plows to the sound of Celia's fiddle : 
Celia sews with her Milton on her knee : 

Young Miranda goes forth to gather berries 
Singing the song of Ariel by the sea. 

When the dusk falls downward from the landslide, 
Through the bush they drive the cattle home: 

They see the shadows of the first Crusaders 
And hear the sibyl at the gates of Rome. 

In the northward, in the southward village 
Brisk steps hasten, the busy hours fly fast ; 

But the clocks are slow in Oldenbury Hollow, 
Where they chime with the voices of the past. 



25 



THE SIGOURNEY CIRCLE 

There is a Parlor on the western pike, 

Below the seven water-bars, 
A dim, cool chamber looking on the wood, 

And ceiled with mimic moon and stars. 

Within whose walls a Stranger, riding down 
From Londonderry Harvest Fair, 

Espied a ring of flowery dresses pale, 
With coronets of braided hair. 

And in the midst a mountain Lady stood, 
Hanging her bright and bashful head. 

And fingering her flounces piped with blue 
And quaintly stitched with silver thread. 

Reciting, in a small and breathless voice, 
As if in desperate Haste to flee, 

Some poem from the admired Tupper's pen, 
Or works of Mrs. Sigourney. 



26 



MR. WILLOWAY 

His beaded waistcoat and his silvery hat, 
His large-tailed coat and russet pantaloons, 

Down the long, solitary marble street 

Come twinkling late on Sunday afternoons. 

Twig-like his limbs, the slender bachelor: 
Loose on him hangs his coat of bygone blue. 

He carries, from his weedy garden plot, 
A bunch of pansies and of feverfew. 

He enters at the cemetery gate 

And Lovers' Lane he follows up and down, 
Past all the sagging weather-eaten stones, 

The tombstones of the founders of the town, 

Until he comes out on a hill-top green. 
Spreads his coat-tails, and seats himself beside 

One " Lucy Waters, ^tat Twenty Years " 
Born in the Baretown Hollow, where she died. 



27 



BY ABANA AND PHARPAR 

Fields, green fields of Shining River, 

Lightly left too soon, 
In the stormy equinoctial, 

In the hunter's moon: — 

Snow-blown fields of Shining River, 

I shall once more tread : 
I shall walk their crested hollows, 

Living or dead. 



28 



THE PARSON'S DAUGHTERS 

ISABELLA 

In rainbow sash and muslin flounces, 
With silver comb in gleaming hair, 

Alone within the stately parlor 
Before the shining mirrors there, 

She holds her breath : O hush ! she dances : 
She wheels, she glides and curtseys deep: 

Yet half she fears her Pilgrim Fathers 
Will turn and chide her in their sleep. 

SYLVIA 

But who is this, with hair blown backward, 
Across the meadows, like the wind, 

Who flies, and sings an ancient ballad 
That leaves a note of spring behind? 

Into the woods of Windward Mountain 
To dream and wander, Sylvia flies: 

Lost to view is her leaf-green bodice, 
Her wood-brown hair and hazel eyes. 
29 



30 The Parson's Daughters 

MARY MARGARET 

Down in the Parson's breezy orchard. 
Under the seek-no-further tree, 

Some one is telling fairy stories 
In the dusk hour after tea. 

Then many a gate is softly opened 
And hushed is many a romping noise, 

As, by a charm, round Mary Margaret 
Gather the little girls and boys. 

Nor do the eyes of children only 
Her lovely look of welcome see : 

A lean and homeless hound comes creeping 
And lays his head against her knee. 



NOCTES AMBROSIANAE 

From Windward Mountain's barren crest 
The roaring gale flies down the west 
And drifts the snow on Redmount's breast 
In hollows dark with pine. 

Full in its path from hill to hill, 
There stands, beside a ruined mill, 
A lonely house, above whose sill 
A brace of candles shine. 

And there an aging bachelor 
And maiden sister full threescore 
Sit all forgetful of the roar 

Of wind and mountain stream : 

Forgot the wind, forgot the snow, 
What magic airs about them blow ? — 
They read in wondering voices low 

The " Midsummer Night's Dream ! " 

And reading, past their frozen hill 
In charmed woods they range their fill 
And hear the horns of Oberon shrill 
Above the Plunging Tam : 
31 



32 Nodes Ambrosianae 

Yea, long beyond the cock's first crow 
In dreams they walk where wind-flowers blow : 
Late do they dream, and liker grow 
iTo Charles and Mary Lamb. 



MORRICE WATER 

Along the shallows of the River 

That flows by Hemlock Mountain's side, 

There is a street of elms and gardens, 
With flower-de-luce and London-pride, 

All green and blue and white reflected 
Within the still and dreaming tide. 

When from the castellated steeple 

The bell's melodious long refrain. 
Full early on a Sabbath morning, 

Is heard across the windy plain, 
Along that street the flowered waistcoat 

And polonaise appear again. 

In the Town-Hall, at spring-time parties, 

To many a quaint and charming tune 
They play "Where art thou?" and "King Wil- 
liam"; 
And still, beneath the harvest moon, 
Lead forth to " Money Musk " their partners 
And dance the reel and rigadoon. 
33 



34 Morrice Water 

And when the graybeards fill the tavern 
With talk of camp and sword and gun, 

They mingle Shiloh and Stone River 
With Concord and with Lexington, 

Until through yesterdays forever 
The Morrice Water seems to run. 



SLIDING RIVER 

It flows through desuUory fields, 
Neglected corn and backward rye, 

Where farmers lean on plow and scythe 
To watch the River sliding by. 

And faces languid as the tide 

Lean out from door and window-sill, 

As if they saw old friends of youth 
Beside its shallows pacing still. 

The children, round its cowslip pools 
Long idling at their noontide play. 

The school-bell hear but faint and far 
Across its marshes borne away: 

And he left blindfold by its bank 
While his companions flee and hide. 

Forgets to seek them, gazing where 
The silver minnows rest and glide. 

I saw a stranger turn again, 

As if he thought to see the boat 

That bore the lily maid Elaine 
Far down the Sliding River float! 
3S 



A PURITAN LADY'S GARDEN 

This fairy pleasance in the brake, — 
This maze run wild of flower and vine, 

Our fathers planted for the sake 
Of eyes that longed for English gardens 
Amid the virgin wastes of pine. 

Above this broken, mouldering wall 
Where still the tiger-lilies ride, 

Once grew the crown imperial, 
The tall blue larkspur, white Queen Margaret, 
Princess-feather, and mourning-bride. 

Beyond their pale, a humbler throng, 
Grew bouncing bet and columbine: 

The mountain fringe ran all along 
The thickset hedge of cinnamon roses. 
And overhung the eglantine. 

And Sunday flowers were here as well : 

Adam and Eve within their hood: 
The purple Canterbury bell, 
And oft in churches breathing fragrance, 
The sweet and pungent southernwood. 
36 



A Puritan Lady's Garden 37 

When ships for England cleared the bay, 
If long, beside these reefs of foam, 

She stood and watched them sail away. 
It was her garden first enticed her 

To turn, and call this country " home." 



IN A FAR TOWNSHIP 

His roundabout of bottle-green 
And pantaloons of fine nankeen 
Were Sunday best : the month was May, 
And this from school a holiday; 
But he had none with whom to play, 
And wandered wistful, up and down, 
All in a strange old garden, 
And in a strange old town. 

A phaeton old, a Dobbin gray, 
Had brought him here to spend the day. 
Now his old Aunt and Uncle drowse; 
No chick nor child is in the house, 
No cat, no dog, no bird or mouse; 
No fairy picture-book to spell. 
No music-box of wonder, 
Or magic whispering shell. 

Unending is this afternoon. 
And strange this landscape as the moon, 
With home a thousand miles away, — 
The pasture where his brothers play 
With whoop and shout, in Indian fray : — 
38 



In a Far Township 39 

The porch where, even at this hour. 
His mother prunes the vine and flower 
And hums the nursery melody. 
" I saw a ship a-sailing, 
A-sailing on the sea." 



A SAINT'S HOURS 

In the still cold before the sun, 
Her Matins Her brothers and her sisters small 

She woke, and washed and dressed each 
one. 

And through the morning hours all 
Prime Singing above her broom she stood 

And swept the house from hall to hall. 

Then out she ran with tidings good. 
Tierce Across the field and down the lane. 

To share them with the neighborhood. 

Four miles she walked, and home again, 
Sexts To sit through half the afternoon 

And hear a feeble crone complain. 



But when she saw the frosty moon 
Nones And lakes of shadow on the hill, 

Her maiden dreams grew bright as noon. 

She threw her pitying apron frill 
Vespers Over a little trembling mouse 

When the sleek cat yawned on the sill 
40 



A Saint's Hours 41 

In the late hours and drowsy house. 
Evensong At last, too tired, beside her bed 

She fell asleep — her prayers half said. 



THE SISTERLY CHILD 

Her new plum-colored roundabout 
Her envious twin would wear, 

While she must go with Paisley shawl 
Pinned round her shoulders bare. 

The ailing baby still she rocked, 

While out beyond the haying, 
" Where oats, peas, beans and barley grow 

She heard the children playing. 

And when her headstrong brother tall 

Went sulking down the lane. 
She ran behind with suckets small 

To comfort all his pain. 



4a 



BAREMOUNTAIN TRAVELERS 

It was a Cromwell- featured boy 

Who rode in front and faced the wind, 

And a young home-bred mountain girl 
In hood and shawl, who rode behind. 

The damsel, gazing left and right, 

Would twitch the young man's sleeve, and cry, 
"Is this the great world, brother!" when 

They passed some thriving hamlet by. 

But when the sun fell down the west. 
The distance changed from blue to gray : 

The sister's bonnet then at rest 
Upon the brother's shoulder lay. 

And neither saw the track they rode ; 

But high on Baremount's windy spine 
They seemed to see their father's house 

All dark beneath its frozen pine. 



43 



THE BRIDES OF MAY AND OF SEPTEMBER 

I SAW my sisters meeting along the shady way 
That led between the houses and the sea; 

The bride of late September, the bride of early May, 
They met before the church of Cloverlea. 

The springtime bride was hanging on her young 
stalwart's arm, 
Pink as the rosy bonnet that she wore. 
The autumn bride came trudging the long mile from 
the farm, 
Her nine step-children walking on before. 

And O the little lame one had all her hair in curls. 
And spruce were all the newly-mothered band : 

A feather in each boy's hat, a flower in each girl's. 
And each child had a comfit in its hand. 



44 



"r^mr mi f » > t l a anu i 



OF TIME AND IMMOR 
TALITY 



BUT THIS IS ALSO EVERLASTING LIFE! 

We call this Time, and gauge it by the clock, 
Deep in such insect cares as suit that view : — 
As whether dresses fit, what modes are new. 

And where to buy, and when to barter, stock. 

We think we hold, based on some Scripture rock, 
Claims on immortal life, to press when due : 
Imagining some door between the two. 

Our deaths shall each, with presto change! unlock. 

But this is also everlasting life! 

On Monday, in the kitchen, street or store, 
We are immortal, we, the man and wife ; 

Immortal now, or shall be nevermore. 
Immortals in immortal values spend 
Those lives that shall no more begin than end. 



47 



THREE POEMS ON IMMORTALITY 



THE LOOKOUT 

Imperious Self beyond self that I call my soul, 

Climb up into the crow's-nest: 

Look out over the changing ocean of my life 

And shout down to me whither to change my course. 

Warn me of the reefs and bergs : 

Warn me well of the mirages! 

No, I cannot release you : you cannot rest : 

There is no one I can trust in your place. 

II 

THE ANODYNE 

In the late evening, when the house is still, 

For an intense instant 

I lift the clean body of my soul 

Out of the soiled garments of mortality^ 

No sooner is it free to rise than it bends back 

earthward, 
And touches mortal life with hands like the hands 

that troubled the waters at Bethesda: 
So this incorruptible touches the corrupt: 
48 



Three Poems on Immortality 49 

This immortal cools with a touch 
The beaded forehead of mortality. 



Ill 

MOTHER 

Foundress and lover of my life, 

My mother Immortality, 

Lean down to this backward and unstable daughter ; 

Take hold of my hand ! 



THE BIBLE 

Whether the doom of thrones it prophesy, — 
Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Babylon; — 
Or whether the kind Psalms of promise run 

Their pastures green, and living waters, by : 

Or, bitter-sweet, the Gospels testify 

" Unto the least of these what thou hast done, 
Thou didst it unto Me : for every one 

Sick or in prison, there with him am I : " 

This is the Book that with authority 

Comforts, commands, both wounds and heals the 
heart : 
Not like a poem, or a history, 

Nor yet like flute and lute with all their art. 
What lack I? do I tremble? weep? or frown? 
Come, let me take this sovereign Bible down. 



50 



JUDGE ME, O LORD 

If I had lived in Palestine 

A poor disciple I had been. 

I had not risked my purse or limb 

All to forsake and follow Him. 

But in that vast and wondering throng 
I too had stood and listened long: 
I too had felt my spirit stirred 
When the Beatitudes I heard. 

With that glad crowd that sang the psalm 
I should, I fear, have strewed the palm, 
Then slunk away in dastard shame 
When the High Priests denounced His name. 
But when my late companions cried 
" Away ! let Him be crucified ! " 
I would have begged, with tremulous 
Pale lips, " Release Him unto us ! " 

Beside the cross when Mary prayed, 
A great way off I too had stayed : 
Not even in that hour had dared, 
And for my fainting Lord declared: 
But beat upon my craven breast 
And loathed my coward heart, at least, 
To think my life I dared not stake 
And beard the Romans for His sake ! 
51 



DEATH THE ADVENTURE 

Neighbor, what are the odds, though we never 
have left the workshop, 

Or laid down shovel and broom, to spend a summer 
in Europe; 

Or even to see the Great Lakes, or behold the 
Yosemite Valley? 

Already our tickets are bought for far more ex- 
tended travel: 

Stranger lands shall we see, and with far friends 
make acquaintance. 

Courage! Home is not all: there are houses and 
gardens elsewhere : 

(Elsewhere gardens, perhaps as lovely as are the 
Italian!) 

Porter in the black cloak . . . Alas, I am not quite 
ready ... 

Yet when the wrench is past, and healed the clean 
stab of parting, 

We shall observe and enjoy the sights and sounds 
of our journey. 

And treasure them up to repeat, when we meet once 
more our beloved. 

Wind, blow full the wide sails for death the adven- 
turous voyage! 

5* 



Death the Adventure '53' 

He that has traveled much is keen to discover fresh 

marvels, 
And he that has traveled but little has his child's 

stock of wonder. 
— Neighbor, what if it rest with us to give the 

direction 
Whether the ship shall round Cape Fear, or the Cape 

of Good Hope? 



BE COMFORTED, MY LITTLE MUSE 

Be comforted, 

My wistful little Muse : 

Lift up thy head : 

To pipe thy slender strain no more refuse. 

Poor creature, couldst thou choose. 

Great themes thou wouldst indite : 

Scorn thy kind bed. 

And pacing the dim valley all this night, 

A Poem write : 

A poem lovely in its sound 

As Lycidas, or L'Allegro: 

And in its thought a trump to blow, — 

A sword to wound, — 

A banner under which to fight ! 

But turn and see. 

My foolish little muse. 

What young Theocritus is he 

Who walks by yonder " fountain Arethuse "? 

A schoolboy loitering home at even 

With face as bright as the far western heaven : 

Walking apart 

And thinking of the Greeks at Marathon, 

Or Richard of the Lion Heart :-j- 

54 



Be Comforted, My Little Muse ^^ 

The English barons and King John, 

Or farmer troops at Lexington. 

Oft, in the meadows round his home, 

He sees the Colonnades of Rome, — 

Sees Holyrood, and London Tower: 

Or, waking at the midnight hour 

On some chill night of middle spring. 

He sees the fairy lanterns swing, 

And hears a chime of magic bells. 

And feels the waft of many a tiny wing 

Through the lone farmhouse where he dwells. 

Then, on a Sunday morning calm. 

Hearing in church some mighty Psalm, 

He lifts his joyous head on high. 

And in his heart for some great cause would die. 

Dost thou not see. 

Poor little muse of mine, 

Melpomene 

Walk by his side, and leaves of laurel twine? 



COME, CAPTAIN AGE! 

Come, Captain Age, 

With your great sea-chest full of treasure ! 

Under the yellow and wrinkled tarpaulin 

Disclose the carved ivory 

And the sandalwood inlaid with pearl : 

Riches of wisdom and years. 

Unfold the India shawl 

With its border of emerald and orange and crimson 

and blue. 
Weave of a lifetime ! 
I shall be rich and splendid 
With the spoils of the Indies of Age. 



56. 



HESPERIDES 

Legacy of golden days, 

Whence falls such sunlight on my ways ? 

What holy magic, what white art 

Delights my body and my heart, 

Looking, on an early morn. 

On falling fields of shining corn. 

Or hearing, storm-bound in the wood, 

Roar of cataracts in flood? 

When many masts of shipping meet 

In vista of a cross-town street ; — 

Or when the sound of trestled trains. 

Heard half drowsing, looms and wanes : — 

When old ballads, bravely read. 

Ring out like cymbals in my head : — 

When I hear the youthful vaunt. 

Radical and militant 

Chivalry of bold young men : — 

Whence have I such pleasure then? 

The crystal fruit of Eden tree, 

The fairy apple, whence to me ? 

My delight is not made of 

Young years, or requited love. 

Nor comes it from brave days well spent, 

Or honor porcelain-innocent. 

57 



58 Hesperides 

I cannot think the blissful art 
Springs from an ever-loyal heart. 
The silver bough, the golden rose 
Surely in some far garden grows, 
Brought hither in a silent ship, 
Whose oars the liquid ether dip 
Unheard, unseen by mortal sight. 
In the dead of night. 
So lucid, thrilling, sweet it is, 
To taste it would not come amiss 
To the saved souls : they would but think 
Suddenly sweeter grew their drink: 
The angels and the archangels 
Might pour it in their sapphire shells. 



CONTENTED AT FORTY 

Since more than half my hopes came true 
And more than half my fears 

Are but the pleasant laughing-stock 
Of these my middle years: — 

Since busy are my brain and hand 

With not ignoble aim : 
Since neighbors on my help rely 

And render me the same: — 

Since in our village councils deep. 

The quest of public weal, 
I weigh my wits and heave my turn 

With shoulder to the wheel : — 

Since early friends have weathered well, 
And triumphed o'er the tongue 

That jesting told how brief should prove 
The friendship of the young: — 

Since ardent youth is justified 

Of many a hope forlorn, 
Now bulwarked in the very hearts 

That laughed it once to scorn: — 

59 



6o Contented at Forty 

Since still the blooming fields of May 
And burning autumn glen 

Delight the eyes that these have seen 
Half threescore times and ten : — 

Since children near me grow and thrive, 
Whom friendly parents lend. 

That I may taste the darling joy 
Their small, sweet forms to tend : — 

Shall I not bless the middle years? 

Not I for youth repine 
While warmly round me cluster lives 

More dear to me than mine. 



THERE WAS A MOON, THERE WAS A STAR 

There was a moon, there was a star, 

There was a path, a wood, 
A silent voice, a speechless word, 

Well heard and understood. 



6x 



PROTESTS 



THE POLTROON 

His country cowered under the mailed fist 

Of the great soldier nation of his day; 

But did he volunteer ? Not he : instead 

He talked in ill-timed, ill-judged platitudes, 

Urging a most unpatriotic peace. 

People that had been once slapped in the face 

Ought to stand still, he thought, till slapped again; 

And if we were insulted, we should watch 

For chances to return it with a favor. 

I will say for him, milksop as he was, 

He was consistent : for he let himself 

Be knocked about the streets and spit upon. 

And never had the manhood to hit back. 

Of course he had no sense at all of honor, — 

Either his country's honor, or his own, — 

Contemptible poltroon! His name was Jesus. 



<55 



PEACE HATH HER BELGIUMS 

There is a Belgium in the bedrooms dark, 
Tiny dark bedrooms, feeders to the grave. 
Hark how the besieged Belgians cough and gasp 
Where those tall Uhlans, Profits, have cut off 
Their sunlight and their air ! 

And there was news, 
Bad news from Belgium, in the morning paper : 
A mine caved in : the Belgians were entombed 
By twenty thousand tons of fallen rock. 
In what dim corner of the farthest workings. 
As evening of the second day draws near. 
Huddle they now, to share their final candle? 

There is a Belgium in the red-light street, 
Where all the habitations of the heart. 
And all the fair cathedrals of the soul 
Go up in flame, in shrapnel fire of hell. 

And every city every winter hath 

Her homemade Belgium of the unemployed. 



66 



ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND MORE! 

Volunteers ! Volunteers ! 
Who will enlist to guard his country 
From the great Invader, War? 
Who will cry, to a threatened people, 
" We come, a hundred thousand more ! " 
Brave must the troops be, iron-hearted, 
Braver than to breast the cannon. 
Braver than to draw the sword : 
Dare you fight a fixed tradition, — 
A frenzied dream, — a despot word? 
Arm, then, free and brave crusaders, 
All your swords in phalanx link. 
Charge the fortress of the foeman, 
If you dare — to think! 



67 



LAST SUNDAY 

Threading the rusty pools and the inky rivers 
That fill the dismal courts of the iron foundry, 
By that blind endless alley whereof the children 
Creep to the crowded doors with their sweated 

labor, 
Giving and taking pestilence from the sunshine, 
That swarms with flies from the steaming heaps of 

refuse, 
I passed the bright saloon whence young men issue. 
Leering with mouths still sensitive, still aspiring, 
At the little girls looking out of the dingy windows 
With eyes (O holy marvel!) still sweet and tender. 

Thence turning sharply into a square of gardens, 
I came to a church of chaste and glorious Gothic, 
Whereof the clustered pillars were bronze and 

marble. 
The walls embossed with many reliefs of angels. 
There was the tall rood-screen of fretted ivory : 
The altar porcelain overlaid with crystal: 
The holy cup of rubies sunken in silver: 
The cross above it gemmed with the pearls of India: 

And as I entered through those shadowy arches, 
Lighted with beams cerulean, Tyrian, amber, 

68 



Last Sunday 69 

The organ melted into a trembling silence, 
And from his Book the Priest began to utter, 
" He that hath ears to hear, O let him hearken : 
O let him hear what the Spirit saith to the 
churches." 



THE JAIL 

Is this a clinic, then, for ailing souls? 

A shop for damaged manhood's skilled repair? 
— Life-saving station on the shores of Time 

To rescue shipwrecked sailors from despair? 

Or is it but a refuse heap, that breeds 

Filth and disease to threaten all mankind? 

A furnace for the shreds of self-respect? 
A slaughter-house for wounded souls and blind? 



70 



THE INCENTIVE 

I SAW a sickly cellar plant 
Droop on its feeble stem, for want 
Of sun and wind and rain and dew, — 
Of freedom ! — Then a man came through 
The cellar, and I heard him say, 
" Poor, foolish plant, by all means stay 
Contented here: for — know you not? — 
This stagnant dampness, mould and rot 
Are your incentive to grow tall 
And reach that sunbeam on the wall." 
-Even as he spoke, the sun's one spark 
Withdrew, and left the dusk more dark. 



71 



SALEM HILLS TO ELLIS ISLAND 

A SINGLE sleighbell tinkling down 
The virgin road that skirts the wood 

Makes poignant to the lonely town 
Its silence and its solitude: 

A single taper's timid flare 

Makes darker, by its feeble light, 

The cold and empty farmsteads square 
That blackly loom to left and right: 

And she who sews, by that dim flame. 
The patient quilt spread on her knees. 

Hears, from her heirloom quilting-frame. 
The frolic of forgotten bees. 

Yea, all the dying village thrills 

With echoes of its cheerful past, — 

The golden age of Salem Hills. 

Its only golden age ? Its last ? 

***** 

From out those hills a voiceless cry 
Along the seaward valley rolls; 

Hear it, great ship ! and forward ply 
With thy rich freight of venturous souls ! 
7a 



Salem Hills to Ellis Island 73 

Hear it, O thronging lower deck. 

Brave homestead-seekers come from far; 

And crowd the rail and crane the neck: 
In Salem Hills your homesteads are. 

Where flourish now the briar and thorn, 
The barley and the wheat shall spring. 

And " valleys standing thick with corn," 

(Praise God, my heart!) " shall laugh and sing." 



RICHARD FORD AND HERMANN SUHR 

Some book for boys to read of heroes in 
Will feature novel names. It may begin, 
Perhaps, with Bunyan in his Bedford jail. 
And with the Quakers strapped to the cart's tail, 
And with the execution of John Brown : 
But it will add names of our state and town : — 
The men of Paterson and Calumet 
Tomorrow will recall, though we forget; 
And there will rise a generation who 
Remember Ford and Suhr. 

The war drives through 
Our times, and bears the civic soldier down : 
For foreign generals we forget our own. 
But fame compounds her mortgaged interest 
To pay those silent convicts in the west. 



74 



THE GOLF LINKS LIE SO NEAR THE MILL 

The golf links lie so near the mill 

That almost every day 
The laboring children can look out 

And see the men at play. 



75 



POISON 

" Come, we'll set traps and poison for the mice, 
And soon we'll kill them all, I hope," he said : 
" And we'll put salt down the ants' holes, to kill 
As many as we can : and if you help, 
You may go fishing in the afternoon : 
Father will show you how to bait the hook 
With angleworms which you and I will dig. 
We'll try to catch a minnow in the brook, 
Or two, or three : that will be fun, my boy ! " 

The little boy looked up with troubled eyes: 
What father said must all be right and fine, 
And he would try his hardest to forget 
How the worm turned on the sharp curly hook 
That cut it so : and how the minnows gasped, 
Beating and struggling hard on the hot grass. 
He would forget that he had ever been 
Thinking that mice were cunning little things. 
Like fairy squirrels . . . only their tails were bald. 
And how he had watched the clever hurrying ants 
Digging their curious houses underground 
And making walls of sand around their doors, 
Their wee small doors . . . 

76 



Poison 

A woman listening 
Said to herself, "Alas, poor little boy, 
That it should be your father setting traps 
To strangle all your childish chivalry, 
And poison fellow-feeling in your heart ! " 



77 



VIVISECTION 

It was our poor relation whom we chose, 
For his convenient helplessness, to bear 
Our pain and sickness: for he could not dare 

Resist, nor form a method to oppose. 

Confidingly he took the poisoned meat, 
The planted ulcer in his body bore: 
Obligingly he sickened more and more, 

Still thinking man his friend. 

When the drum beat 
For the world war, science, well trained to kill. 

Practiced in treachery and vicarious pain. 
Her poisoned gases hurried to distil, 

Ambushed her submarines, and turned again 
Some stealthier manner to conceive or borrow 
For doubling death and multiplying sorrow. 



78 



THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 

"The unfit die: the fit both live and thrive." 
Alas, who say so ? — They who do survive. 

So, when her bonfires lighted hill and plain, 
Did Bloody Mary think on Lady Jane. 

So Russia thought of Finland, while her heel 
Fell heavier on the prostrate commonweal. 

So Booth of Lincoln thought: and so the High 
Priests let Barabbas live, and Jesus die. 



79 



PRIESTS AND LEVITES 

" So cruel it was, I could not bear the sight : 
I hurried past, and turned my eyes away." 
" Placed as I am, what could I do or say ? 

I must uphold my colleagues, wrong or right." 

" My sympathies are with you in the fight. 
But do not call me as a witness, pray." 
"God save the cause! but need I join the fray? 

'Tis too conspicuous to suit me quite." 

(Did not the Priest and Levite, when they met, 
Solemnly sigh, and shake the saintly head, 

With some faint boding wonder of regret 

That they had passed that traveler sore bested ? 

" Pity we needs must hasten by so soon : 

But the Sanhedrim met that afternoon.") 



80 



COMRADE JESUS 

Thanks to Saint Matthew, who had been 
At mass-meetings in Palestine, 
We know whose side was spoken for 
When Comrade Jesus had the floor. 

" Where sore they toil and hard they lie, 
Among the great unwashed, dwell I. 
The tramp, the convict, I am he: 
Cold-shoulder him, cold-shoulder me." 

By Dives' door, with thoughtful eye, 
He did tomorrow prophesy: — 
" The Kingdom's gate is low and small : 
The rich can scarce wedge through at all." 

" A dangerous man," said Caiaphas, 
"An ignorant demagogue, alas. 
Friend of low women, it is he 
Slanders the upright Pharisee." 

For law and order, it was plain, 
For Holy Church, he must be slain. 
The troops were there to awe the crowd : 
Mob violence was not allowed. 

8i 



82 Comrade Jesus 

Their clumsy forc'e with force to foil, 
His strong, clean hands he would not soil. 
He saw their childishness quite plain 
Between the lightnings of his pain. 

Between the twilights of his end 
He made his fellow-felon friend. 
With swollen tongue and blinded eyes 
Invited him to Paradise. 

Ah, let no Local him refuse ! 
Comrade Jesus hath paid his dues. 
Whatever other be debarred. 
Comrade Jesus hath his red card. 



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